Co-op Commander Guide: Dehaka

Co-op Commander Guide: Dehaka

Overview

Dehaka, Primal Pack Leader, commands his pack of Primal Zerg from the frontlines as a powerful hero unit. Dehaka’s hunt for Essence allows him to level up throughout the course of the match, gradually increasing his attributes and unlocking new abilities as he gathers more Essence from slain enemies. Dehaka is joined by his Primal Pack and the three Pack Leaders, Glevig, Murvar, and Dakrun. Each of Dehaka’s basic combat units have the ability to engage in Primal Combat with one another, killing the loser and allowing the victor to evolve into a more powerful unit, capable of better serving the Pack.

Strengths

Scaling Hero Unit: Dehaka takes to the field as a hero unit that dominates the playstyle of the commander. Spawning only one minute after the start of the game, Dehaka starts off small and weak, but possesses the power to harvest Essence from defeated enemies and level up. Dehaka allows players to engage in combat from the very start of a game, quickly growing strong enough to take on entire armies by himself.

Powerful Calldowns: In addition to his hero unit, Dehaka has access to three Primal Pack Leaders, each of whom is a force of nature capable of demolishing entire enemy bases, or burning attacks waves to a crisp in mere moments. With these three distinctive and powerful calldowns at his command, Dehaka almost always has an answer to incoming enemy threats due to their high combined uptime.

Weaknesses

Reliance on Psionic/Biological Enemies: While Dehaka and his army are powerful enough to deal with any situation comfortably, he requires the presence of certain types of enemy units to truly excel. Biological units provide him with much-needed healing when Devoured, while psionic enemies enable him to unleash devastating amounts of area damage.

Poor Army Mobility: Although Dehaka and his calldowns possess varying degrees of global mobility, his army has to slog its way from base to base. This limits the speed at which he can clean up enemy bases and often leads to a scenario where you have wiped the map clean of enemy defenders, but are left waiting for his army to catch up and finish the job.

Weakness to Sustained Fire: While the healing from Devour can be powerful when used skillfully, setting up enemies for back-to-back casts of Devour requires both time and space to maneuver. Both of these are in short supply when the enemy possesses lots of ranged firepower, as is often seen in Terran base defenses.

Suggested Unit Compositions

Dehaka’s two primary compositions are both reliable choices when you want to directly engage enemy forces with your army, whether they be attack waves or enemy base defenses. They are most useful when the Dehaka player is not confident in their ability to clear maps with only Dehaka and his calldowns, or when the enemy composition doesn’t permit for such a strategy.

Mass Mutalisk

Mutalisks are great all-rounder units with an emphasis on durability and anti-air. As Dehaka’s strongest units are highly specialized, Mutalisks have the unique honor of performing well in almost any possible situation. You will often find yourself resorting to massing these flying powerhouses in longer games and on larger maps, where flexibility and staying power are in high demand. Conversely, skilled players will find that more specialized units may serve better for shorter games and smaller maps—but Mutalisks are never far behind those alternative options, while requiring significantly less effort to use.

Mass Guardian

Mass Guardian is your go-to build against enemy ground compositions for when Dehaka and his Pack Leaders have to struggle to kill every enemy unit by themselves. This is common against Terran mech, on Infested maps, and on Oblivion Express. Due to the high cost of unit upgrades, it becomes very expensive to mix in Mutalisks for anti-air until extremely late into the game, leaving Dehaka and his calldowns responsible for keeping your Guardians safe from enemy air units.

Niche Compositions

While Dehaka has access to a wide variety of niche compositions, it is important to note that these all serve the purpose of cleaning up stray enemies while Dehaka himself and his calldowns destroy most enemy defenses. The difference between these compositions is in the way they deliver their damage, as each favors different types of targets and has different tolerance to being engaged by enemy stragglers.

Impaler + Primal Wurm

Impalers, while seemingly extremely limited, are made viable due to Dehaka’s ability to deal overwhelming burst damage on his own when enemy psionic units are present. In games where Dehaka has the tools available to deal with all enemy units by himself, Impalers will find their access to high-HP targets such as Void Thrashers, Void Shards, structures, and Trains unobstructed, leaving them free to leverage their overwhelming single target damage to make up for Dehaka’s lack of sustained damage. Primal Wurms are especially useful here, as their ability to make targeted, surgical strikes aligns well with Impalers.

Primal Host + Zergling

Similar to Impaler strategies, Primal Hosts work best when Dehaka is free to dominate the map by himself. Primal Hosts serve the same function as Impalers, but are far more efficient at switching between different targets over a wide area, at the cost of a measure of raw damage output. These are best used to clean up entire enemy bases, such as those found blocking your path on Chain of Ascension, Rifts to Korhal, or Part and Parcel. Zerglings can always be added using spare minerals, provided that you are able to manage them correctly in order to prevent them from spreading out and getting picked off by stray enemy units. If not, Primal Wurms remain an excellent alternative, though they lack the mobility to navigate the large bases that favour Primal Hosts.

Mass Primal Wurm

Mass Primal Wurm can be used at the exclusion of other units for special strategies that involve sequence-breaking the clearing order on certain maps that are otherwise inaccessible by direct travel, such as reverse-clearing on Scythe of Amon. Primal Wurms can also be used as a standalone, mineral-only force to free up gas geysers for your ally, as the impact of Dehaka’s army is relatively low compared to that of other commanders. As such, an allied Nova or Vorazun can often make far greater use of up to three of Dehaka’s spare gas geysers when using this strategy.

General Tips

Attention should be paid to actively controlling Dehaka at all times. In terms of spending time controlling Dehaka and his calldowns weighted against controlling his army, keeping your attention largely focused on Dehaka will yield greater results on the battlefield. This means clearing an area of defenders with Dehaka, then moving onto another part of the map with him while attack-moving your army in to clean up structures and stray units.

Dehaka’s macromanagement is very lenient, with the larva-like production of his structures allowing for somewhat lax production cycles. Use this to your advantage by concentrating your macro into breaks in the hero action, such as when slowing a group of enemies with Intimidating Roar. Take a moment to go back to base to check on research and production.

While Dehaka’s macromanagement is fairly lenient, it is important to construct each of the Pack Leader Dens as soon as possible. This ensures the earliest possible uses of these devastating calldowns, rewarding you with Essence from slain enemies, as well as opening up the map.

Dehaka’s success is not as closely tied to his economy as other commanders. It’s usually worth delaying your expansion in favour of acquiring your Pack Leader Dens as soon as possible, and this is reflected in the recommended build order.

Though Primal Wardens and Primal Hives can be uprooted and used for combat, this has little benefit, as their slow speed and great collision size make them incredibly cumbersome in battle, and all they really provide are a beefy health bar. However, you can move your Primal Wardens to a central location, or have them follow behind your army as you progress through the map in order to have access to faster reinforcements.

If defeated, Dehaka will respawn at his Den after 90 seconds. He can be revived earlier by feeding him 4-9 Drones (depending on his level) while in his Den, each Drone reducing his respawn timer. Keeping an extra ~6 Drones in your base can be useful for reviving Dehaka, to avoid weakening your economy while you produce new Drones. Endangering Dehaka by playing aggressively is preferable to playing too cautiously.

Start leveling Dehaka up as soon as he spawns. It’s never advantageous to use him for clearing expansion Rocks or attacking structures—use Zerglings for that.

Excelling with Dehaka requires a deep understanding of how to make the most of your hero unit and calldowns, taking priority over all other player skills. Refer to the Using Dehaka section for more details.

Calldown and Unit Overview

Calldowns

Dehaka’s calldowns are locked behind their respective Pack Leader Den structures, with Greater Primal Wurms being tied to Glevig’s Den. As the three main calldowns are overwhelmingly powerful, it’s recommended to prioritize each of these Dens and construct them the moment they become available. When a Den is first completed, its respective calldown goes on a brief 1 minute coolup period before becoming available to cast anywhere on the map with vision.

Greater Primal Wurm

31.82 DPS

Can hold up to 3 charges, with a cooldown of 120 per charge (84 seconds with mastery). Once summoned, Greater Primal Wurms last for 60 seconds.

An enhanced version of the standard Primal Wurm. Greater Primal Wurms have 50% more HP and damage output, and possess enough on-demand burst damage to deal with even capital ships by using their Bile Stream and a few auto attacks. These are best used for this exact purpose during the early-mid game, when Dehaka still lacks the ability to easily access his anti-air attack without placing his Devour on an unreasonably long cooldown. Greater Primal Wurms also have detection, and can be used if Dehaka is not available.

The secondary use for this calldown is to summon it in the fog of war to grant vision for your other units with Deep Tunnel. The Greater Primal Wurm only requires exploration of the targeted area—not vision—in order to be summoned. This means they can be placed anywhere on the map that is not blacked out, provided the space isn’t occupied by enemy units. This only applies to its initial summon, however—its Deep Tunnel still requires vision, just like Dehaka’s other variants of Deep Tunnel. Reserving Greater Primal Wurms for mobility can be very beneficial for players who aren’t intimately familiar with a map’s attack wave patterns.

Greater Bile Stream

Channels for 5 seconds, dealing 70 damage per second to the targeted enemy unit. Has a cooldown of 20 seconds.

Deep Tunnel

After a 2 second cast time, the Primal Wurm instantly moves to the targeted location anywhere on the map with vision, requiring an additional 3 seconds to fully emerge.

Glevig

50.00 DPS

Has a cooldown of 360 seconds. Once summoned, Glevig lasts for 60 seconds (78 with mastery).

Glevig is arguably the most powerful calldown in the entire game, with his Incendiary Acid ability being able to deal enough damage to destroy multiple Protoss Carriers in a single cast. Each use of this ability is comparable to Nova’s Griffin Airstrike ability, which costs 700-1000 minerals per use. Glevig channels this ability for 5 seconds, dealing the full damage spread out over time. With only a 6 second cooldown between each cast and an enormous area of effect, this is a truly devastating ability that is worth taking advantage of.

Glevig also possesses an autoattack that deals 100 damage per hit with full splash damage in a radius of 1 around his target. Additionally, Glevig’s version of Deep Tunnel has no cooldown, and can be used to move him across the map to devastate multiple enemy bases each time he is summoned. Mastery of Dehaka demands knowledge of where to use Glevig, how to position enemies for optimal damage, and how to effectively strike multiple parts of the map with each summon. Use Glevig to clear out groups of dangerous enemies, instead of wasting him on high-HP objectives such as Void Shards.

When Glevig is initially summoned, he is accompanied by 8 Primal Zerglings, 2 Primal Roaches and 2 Primal Hydralisks with timed life. Though fairly fragile, they have great damage potential. Use them to deal sustained damage to structures and objectives while Glevig handles the enemy units. It may be worth it to summon Glevig near enemy bases that you previously cleared of defenders, before Deep Tunneling him elsewhere to fight while his reinforcements clean up, though this is highly situational.

Incendiary Acid

Glevig breathes fire in a line, dealing 500 damage over 5 seconds to everything within. Has a 6 second cooldown, beginning after the cast is finished. Can be set to autocast—subsequent summons of Glevig will remember what you set it to.

Deep Tunnel

After a 2 second cast time, Glevig instantly moves to the targeted location anywhere on the map with vision, requiring an additional 3 seconds to fully emerge. This ability has no cooldown.

Has a cooldown of 360 seconds. Once summoned, Murvar lasts for 60 seconds (78 with mastery).

Murvar functions as a beefy unit spawner, constantly summoning Locusts and Creepers, continuously attacking the enemy in waves and dealing hefty sustained damage. While lacking Glevig’s high upfront burst damage, Murvar’s sustained damage works well over a medium-wide area, and shores up a glaring weakness in Dehaka’s kit. In addition to her minion spawns, Murvar also autocasts the Oppressive Stench ability, which disables the attacks and abilities of all enemy ground units in a radius of 3. This ability has a shorter cooldown than duration, and will gradually create a blanket of these clouds.

When summoned, Murvar casts four Oppressive Stench clouds around herself, disabling nearby enemies in an impressive area around her—be sure to summon her in the midst of the enemy forces before moving her to a safe distance, where she can continue her siege.

It should be noted that the Creeper Host’s Aerial Burst Sacs upgrade also affects Murvar’s Creepers, and should be researched as soon as possible if you’re planning to use Murvar against capital ships.

Murvar creates a cloud with a radius of 3 that slows enemy movement by 50% and prevents enemies from attacking or using energy-based abilities. Lasts for 5 seconds, and has a 3 second cooldown. Defaults to autocast.

Dakrun

66.67 DPS

Has a cooldown of 360 seconds. Once summoned, Dakrun lasts for 60 seconds (78 with mastery).Dakrun is ideally used as a frontliner for Dehaka, with his 3000 HP and 5 armor. He possesses a single-target auto attack, the ability to reflect damage to attackers, and a ground AoE ability.

End game bases often feature enough spread out enemy firepower to Dehaka’s aggression with his hero unit, forcing players to stick to the sidelines in order to maintain Dehaka’s health. Dakrun is durable enough to be sent into these bases to act as a distraction, ideally being summoned in one half of the base while Dehaka rampages through the other half. That being said, Dakrun is strictly worse for this purpose than Murvar, as he is limited by his poor offensive capabilities and inability to attack air units. While his Spiked Hide can do a decent job of killing continuous attackers like Marines, Banshees and Void Rays, the 200 damage dealt by Dakrun’s Brutal Charge pales in comparison to the health possessed by Hybrids, which are what you will typically be fighting by the time Dakrun is ready to be summoned. Additionally, he is unable to deal with most enemy capital ships, with only a measure of potential against Battlecruisers if he is facing them alone, in order to draw benefit from his Spiked Hide.

Brutal Charge is cast at the targeted location when Dakrun is initially summoned. Try to summon him underneath groups of enemies to make use of this.

Special attention should be paid to identifying a use case for Dakrun on the map you’re playing, as he can easily be wasted due to his limited skillset.

Brutal Charge

Dakrun charges to a target location, dealing 200 damage to all enemies within a radius of 3. 10 second cooldown. Can be used to move through terrain that would block ground movement, such as over cliffs or unpathable ground.

Hero and Unit Overview

Dehaka

Dehaka spawns 60 seconds into the game, starting off weaker than other heroes but possessing the ability to collect Essence and gain levels. Essence drops from defeated enemies at a rate of 2 Essence per supply of the unit. Each point of Essence collected grants Dehaka 0.75 points of maximum HP and heals Dehaka for 2 HP. As he levels up, he gains mutation points which he can spend to level up his abilities. Included below is a recommended ability allocation order. See the Using Dehaka section for details on how to best make use of Dehaka’s skillset.

Leap

Dehaka flings himself at the targeted location, dealing 25 + 50% weapon damage to ground units in a radius of 1 extending from Dehaka’s collision box—meaning that as Dehaka grows in size with each level, so does the effective area of Leap. At Leap level 2, the Leap range is increased by 6, and the damage is increased to 25+ 75% weapon damage. At Leap level 3, each enemy hit by the Leap grants Dehaka 1 armor for 2 seconds.

Leap is best used for reducing the health of a group of enemies to enable Dehaka to Devour them one by one, for positioning Dehaka for a potent psionic explosion, or for escaping when trapped by enemy units.

Intimidating Roar

Dehaka roars, instantly applying a debuff to enemy units within a radius of 10. At Intimidating Roar level 1, this slows enemy movement speed by 75% and attack speed by 25%, lasting for 15 seconds. At Intimidating Roar level 2, it also disables enemies from casting spells with an energy cost. At Intimidating Roar level 3, affected enemies also have their armor reduced by 2.

This ability is generally used for kiting enemies, giving Dehaka time to heal and position enemies, and to prevent dangerous enemy casters from using spells such as Yamato cannon, Plasma Blast and Psionic Storm.

Devour

Dehaka pulls the targeted enemy unit to himself, Devouring and instantly killing it. This heals him for 5% (8% with mastery, as the mastery inexplicably gains twice the benefit) of his maximum health, and providing a variety of bonus effects depending on the type of enemy consumed, gaining one buff for every type the enemy unit had. See the table below for a full list of effects. At Devour level 1, the range starts at 6, buffs last for 15 seconds, and the cooldown is equal to 1 second per 10 health the enemy had at the time of Devour. At Devour level 2, the range is increased by 3 and buffs now last for 25 seconds. At Devour level 3, the range is further increased by 3, and the cooldown is reduced by 20%. The maximum cooldown that Devour can incur is 60 seconds (48 seconds at Devour Level 3).

Consume is best used against psionic, biological, and low-health massive enemies. These will allow for quick bursts of area damage and quick healing. Try to only Devour enemies that are at low health, in order to avoid high cooldowns.

Biological: Devour healing is increased to 20% (26% with mastery) of Dehaka’s healthMechanical: Gain 30% attack speedLight: Gain 30% movement speedArmored: Gain 30% extra damage with attacks and spells versus armored targetsAir: Gain a ranged beam attack with 6 range, possessing the same DPS as normal auto attacks but dealing its damage more steadilyMassive: Gain 3 armor and a Thorns effect that deals 10 damage per hit to attackersPsionic: Gain 50% cooldown reduction and immediately deal 200% weapon damage in a radius of 3. Note: If the first unit Devoured after Dehaka’s initial spawn or after any respawn is psionic, the explosion will deal 0 damage. This is a bug.

Scorching Breath

Deals 100% of weapon damage to ground enemies in a line perpendicular to the direction that Dehaka is facing. Holds up to 3 charges, each with a 30 second recharge time. This ability is best used against enemy attack waves that are grouped up, or after pulling enemy defenses from a base. Requires hero Level 6.

Primal Regeneration

Provides an aura that regenerates 1 HP/s per level, up to 3HP/s for all allies within a radius of 10.

This doesn’t provide that much healing compared to the total health pools of Dehaka and his units, and is not recommended to be taken early on. In order to benefit from this healing, it also requires allied units to be near him, and Dehaka can easily outpace his- and his ally’s units with both Leap and Deep Tunnel, and you often want Dehaka to operate separately from allied armies.

Chitinous Plating

Increases Dehaka’s armor by 3. This can be useful when facing units such as Marines, Reapers, Battlecruisers, Zerglings, Zealots, and Carriers. Requires hero Level 5.

Keen Senses

Allows Dehaka to detect cloaked, burrowed, and hallucinated units. Get this early when you are facing cloaked units, either as part of enemy attack waves or as pre-placed map defenses. Requires hero Level 5.

Units and Structures

The basic units spawned from Dehaka’s Primal Wardens have the ability to engage in Primal Combat. In Primal Combat, one must die so that another can grow stronger—it allows the winner to evolve into a different unit, gaining new capabilities and having a chance to gain Gene Mutations. Gene Mutations can manifest as +50% HP, +20% lifesteal, +20% attack speed Evolved units have a 20% (26% with mastery) chance to gain each of these, and they can gain multiple Gene Mutations if random chance allows it, as each of them are rolled independently.

Primal Zergling

10.00 DPS

A basic melee unit. Primal Zerglings possess above-average DPS and survivability for their cost, but still suffer from being a low-HP melee unit without any of the regular Zergling’s powerful upgrades. As such, they are relegated to clean-up duties against enemy structures in the rare situations where they are actually justified.

Unlike regular Zerglings, Primal Zerglings hatch one at a time for the price of 50 minerals and 1 supply each, but coming with 100% more HP and 40% higher damage.

Ravasaur

10.00 (12.50 vs armored) DPS

The upgraded form of the Primal Zergling boasts improved range, but possesses only half of the Zergling’s DPS per resource cost and do not gain increased HP. On top of this, their slow projectile attacks lead to much higher overkill, resulting in significant damage loss due to their attacks often being wasted against targets killed only moments ago. Even with their range and bonus damage upgrades, these are a poor use of your resources in most situations, with other options being more effective.

Primal Roach

8.00 DPS

A durable, anti-ground frontline ranged unit with average offensive stats. Primal Roaches see limited use in their base form, as Dehaka himself already provides ample protection for his backline units, and suffers from none of the attrition that affects his army units. It should be noted that the Glial Reconstitution upgrade’s movement speed increase also applies to Primal Igniters.

Primal Igniter

12.50 (20.00 vs light with upgrade) DPS

Primal Igniters have the dubious honor of being exceptional for dealing damage to enemies which are otherwise easily dealt with using other alternatives. Igniters are extremely durable for their cost and boast an impressive amount of AoE damage against light units, though Dehaka’s other options already work well against light units. Igniters do have a niche against the Infested structures on Dead of Night, as Igniters are capable of dealing impressive damage against them without being slowed down by the numerous Broodlings that spawn when they are destroyed.

When using Igniters, both of their upgrades, which increase their move speed and their damage against light units, should be researched as soon as they become available.

Primal Guardian

Initial: 17.50 DPSSustained: 26.31 DPS

Long-ranged air-to-ground units with impressive damage output and an equally impressive cost. Primal Guardians are powerful siege units with access to some very impactful upgrades, and come at the bargain price of 150 minerals and gas per Guardian, though they can’t attack air units.

The Guardian’s performance without its upgrades is nothing spectacular, making both of them a high priority. The Explosive Spores upgrade in particular goes a long way towards mitigating the overkill loss incurred by the Guardian’s long-distance projectile attacks.

Guardians will often be your go-to unit against enemy ground compositions or massive numbers of Infested, such as on Miner Evacuation and Dead of Night. They are also valuable when attacking enemy fortifications, as they outrange static defenses and are unaffected by many powerful defensive units such as Siege Tanks and Colossi.

Primordial Fury: Grants the Guardian 10% attack speed with each consecutive attack, stacking up to 50% attack speed. This makes the Guardian significantly more deadly during sustained combat.

Explosive Spores: The Guardian launches a projectile at an enemy, which explodes after a 2 second delay, dealing 50 damage to enemies within a 2 radius and knocking nearby non-massive enemies back. Should the enemy die while the Explosive Spore is attached to them, it explodes immediately. Has a 10 second cooldown.

Primal Hydralisk

14.46 DPS

Primal Hydralisks are all-rounder units with above average damage output but very low HP for their cost. While these can be effective for providing cleanup damage prior to being morphed, engaging the enemy directly with them should be avoided whenever possible, as their 100/50 price tag makes for a hefty investment for their low impact in fights and the ease with which they die. Still, they can provide a measure of anti-air on short maps where you do not have the time or resources to build enough Mutalisks to be effective.

An extremely durable all-rounder unit, though not as cost effective as more specialized units. Primal Mutalisks perform well against all targets, but are rather expensive, costing 200/125 each, along with their expensive upgrades. Primal Mutalisks are useful for tackling enemy air presence and large enemy bases with their versatile attacks, but can also be used by less confident players to trivialize any and all enemy compositions, as their high HP and revival on death makes them easy to use and allows them to provide substantial value over time, paying off their high cost.

When first building up your force of Mutalisks, hold onto them and avoid direct combat until Primal Reconstitution is researched and you have 4-5 Mutalisks ready. Losing even a single one can be devastating. Their other two upgrades can be skipped in many situations. Slicing Glaive should only be researched when intending to attack numerous air-based objectives or capital ships, while Shifting Carapace is effective only in situations where they will be moving between targets during combat, such as when clearing an enemy base or attack wave without using Dehaka or a Pack Leader to remove the majority of enemies first.

Slicing Glaive: Increases damage dealt against air units by 50%. Makes for a very useful upgrade if you are going to face plentiful enemy air, such as on Scythe of Amon or against an enemy air composition, or on missions with air-based objectives, such as on Void Launch or Malwarfare. Should be skipped otherwise.

Shifting Carapace: Reduces damage taken by the Mutalisk by 50% whenever it is moving. This damage reduction is gained immediately upon starting to move, and is lost only once the unit has decelerated. Since Mutalisks tend to move about from target to target during combat, this can significantly prolong their life, and can be used to micro damaged Mutalisks to safety, or if you need to retreat. However, due to the unit density in enemy attack waves, Shifting Carapace tends to be less effective against them.

Primal Reconstitution: Upon death, revives the Mutalisk with full health. Has a cooldown of 60 seconds, so try to avoid sending your Mutalisks into heated battles right after just taking a lot of damage on them. Always research this first.

Impaler

27.59 (41.38 vs armored) DPS

A unique siege unit that boasts exceptional single target DPS and range, but has a slow projectile attack and lacks any kind of AoE. Due to this, Impalers are actually less useful in defensive situations, and are best used for sniping high-value targets, such as map objectives and Hybrids. It’s important to note that Impalers have a higher attack range than vision range, and require a spotter to function at peak performance. This role can be filled by Primal Wurms or Dehaka himself, depending on situation.

Their upgrade, Tenderize, only adds what amounts to 25% of one Impaler’s DPS and doesn’t stack. It can be useful for its 50% Devour cooldown bonus, but only if actively directed against Hybrids and other high priority targets. This is extremely difficult to execute and is generally not impactful outside of specific mutations—spend your focus on optimizing your Dehaka play rather than on trying to take advantage of this.

Primal Host

Locust: 16.66 DPS (x2), spawned every 30 seconds

Mobile Locust spawners that do not have an attack of their own. Primal Hosts offer a workable solution to Dehaka’s lacklustre damage output against enemy structures, though they are fairly limited in their scope. They do not lose much effectiveness when massed, as the initial Locust Swoop brings them into melee range of enemies, which is handy at preventing the Locusts from blocking each other heavily, thus allowing them to output exceptional DPS. However, their inability to attack air units and their weakness against heavy enemy firepower renders them less than capable in direct combat. Fortunately, Dehaka has many other tools at his disposal for tackling those issues, and Primal Hosts can be used comfortably in their own niche.

Some measure of care should be taken when using these, as their damage output can easily be wasted if the Locusts are spawned in the wrong place, or when too many Primal Hosts block the Primal Hosts behind them from spawning Locusts. Spend some time planning your route around the map, and move your Primal Hosts forward for better control over your Locusts. You can also manually use the Spawn Locusts ability to prevent wasting damage potential.

Creeper Hosts are mobile launchers of Explosive Creepers, and are intended to act as a multipurpose siege unit. While Explosive Creepers appear to offer impressive burst damage on paper, their targeting AI can be problematic, and may cause behaviours that render them unusable against many enemy compositions.

When Explosive Creepers select a target to attack, they use a lengthy “swooping” animation to reach their target. This leads to projectile-like behaviour, where multiple Creepers will select the same target in quick succession, thus wasting their attacks by continuously swooping at the same target. When these overlapping Creepers conclude their swooping animation and realize there is no longer a target to explode on, they perform another animation to launch back into the air, before selecting another target and going through the same process. The result is that entire waves of Creepers waste their attacks, spending all their time repeatedly diving at the ground to no effect.

The Aerial Burst Sacs upgrade enables Creepers to target air units, which works out much better than when fighting ground units. This makes them reasonably effective against air units, though this scope is far too narrow to justify their production, especially when their anti-air attack does not feature area damage like their ground attack does, and in any case Mutalisks are almost as effective in this role, while being significantly more versatile. Aerial Burst Sacs does allow Creepers to be manually spawned and flown in to snipe objectives, such as Void Shards, Slivers, or Thrashers, without needing to clear out the defending units. This is mostly useful for countering tricky mutations.

When relying on Primal Hosts to clean up enemy bases and objectives, morphing 2-3 Creeper Hosts can help against stray air units. Morphing any more than that is usually overkill, and results in a severe loss of sustained DPS.

Creeper Hosts cannot gain the attack speed and lifesteal Gene Mutations, but can instead gain Incubation Sacs, increasing their number of spawned Explosive Creepers from 2 to 4.

Primal Ultralisk

40.70 DPS, 5.81 DPS in a frontal cleave

A durable frontliner whose HP is only matched by its resource cost. Primal Ultralisks provide a hefty meatshield with a cleaving melee attack and crowd control abilities, but they are largely redundant due to Dehaka himself accomplishing the same tasks at no cost, and with zero attrition.

If you are inclined to use these instead of evolving them into Tyrannozors, all of their upgrades are essential, and are not that expensive compared to the Ultralisks themselves. Brutal Charge is worth prioritizing, as it is great for avoiding crowding issues.

Brutal Charge: Charge to a target location, knocking back units in the area and dealing 25 damage. Defaults to autocast.

Healing Adaptation: Primal Ultralisks regenerate 10 life per second after being out of combat for at least 10 seconds.

Impaling Strike: Grants a 20% chance to stun damaged enemies with each attack. This also applies to damage dealt by the Ultralisk’s cleave.

Tyrannozor

Ground: 40.70 DPS, 5.81 DPS in a frontal cleaveAir: 37.50 DPS

Extremely expensive multipurpose unit with high durability, a cleaving ground attack, a powerful air attack and an area damage Spike Burst ability. Despite their impressive statline, they are held back by their monstrous resource cost of 600/400, massive collision size and lack of health sustain. While they have very poor cost effectiveness, Tyrannozors can provide a measure of utility against late game air attack waves via their Spike Burst ability, which is capable of wiping out stacked enemy units in the blink of an eye with just a handful of Tyrannozors. However, this is a technique that should be avoided unless you are confident in your unit control and general game awareness.

Spike Burst: Unleashes a barrage of spikes, dealing 100 damage to air and ground units within a radius of 3. If you are planning to use this as part of a strategy, you may want to disable the autocast and use it manually. Has a cooldown of 10 seconds.

Tyrants Protection: Grants allied units within a radius of 5 an additional 2 armor. The Tyrannozor does not gain this bonus armor itself, but a second Tyrannozor can apply it.

Impaling Strike: Grants a 20% chance to stun damaged enemies with each attack. This also applies to damage dealt by the Tyrannozor’s cleave.

Primal Wurm

22.73 DPS

Primal Wurms are a unique defensive structure, possessing the ability to unleash a highly damaging Bile Stream, as well as being able to Deep Tunnel to any visible area of the map. While Primal Wurms can be used for base defense, their steep cost of 250 minerals plus a Drone makes it hard for them to gain value that way. They are best used as surgical strike units, Deep Tunneling to the frontline and unleashing massive burst damage with their Bile Streams against high-priority targets. Unlike other defensive structures, it is recommended to hotkey all of your Primal Wurms, for ease of access in the middle of combat.

Primal Wurms take up 2 supply. Build them in batches by morphing a number of Drones from your Primal Hives and rallying them towards a large, empty spot.

Primal Wurms have detection, and can be used to gain vision of cloaked enemies when Dehaka is not nearby.

Bile Stream: Channels for 5 seconds, dealing 50 damage per second to the targeted enemy unit. Has a cooldown of 60 seconds. This is a very potent ability that benefits greatly from being used with the Rapid Fire technique. Learn more about Rapid Fire here.

Deep Tunnel: After a 2 second cast time, the Primal Wurm instantly moves to the targeted location anywhere on the map with vision, requiring an additional 3 second to fully emerge. This ability also benefits greatly from the Rapid Fire technique.

In-depth

Build Order

23 Extractor

23 Primal Warden

25 Extractor

29 Glevig's Den

29 2 Zerglings (unburrow Primal Warden and attack Rocks)

31 Primal Hive

44 Primal Warden

Construct Murvar's Den and Dakrun's Den as soon as possible

Notes: 1) Build the next Pack Leader Den as soon as the previous one finishes construction2) When the expansion Primal Hive finishes, produce Drones from it before uprooting it and moving it into place3) Add two more Primal Wardens in-between Drones and Pack Leader Dens once the expansion Hive has been started

Masteries

Power Set 1:

Devour Healing Increase: +1% - 30%

Devour Buff Duration: +1% - 30%

Most Devour buffs are generally not critical to Dehaka’s performance. While some buffs such as the Thorns & armor gained from massive units are powerful, it’s rarely difficult to maintain relevant buffs by simply weakening and Devouring the units that grant them before they can expire. Devour Healing is always applicable and allows Dehaka to be much more aggressive—and anything that better enables him to play aggressively and stay in the fight is a massive benefit to Dehaka.

Power Set 2

Greater Primal Wurm Cooldown: -1% - 30%

Pack Leaders Active Duration: +1% - 30%

Primal Wurms are mediocre in direct combat, and are mostly useful for vision and detection. On the other hand, Pack Leaders completely reshape the battlefield, and an 18 second increase in their duration is a massive benefit to their performance in almost every situation. This is especially true for Glevig, whose impact is mostly determined by how many uses of his Incendiary Acid you can get out of him.

Power Set 3:

Gene Mutation Chance: +1% - 30%

Dehaka Attack Speed: +1% - 30%

Gene Mutations are passive buffs granted to any unit evolved through Primal Combat. The different buffs these can manifest as are +50% HP, +20% lifesteal, +20% attack speed, double Creeper spawns for Creeper Hosts, and a 10 damage Thorns effect for Tyrannozors. Without mastery, each effect has an independent 20% chance to be applied, and a unit can receive anywhere from zero to all of the available buffs. Unfortunately, while these buffs have the potential of being impactful, they are more likely to make little difference, and the mastery only increases each mutation’s probability by a mere 6%, for a total of 26% rolled individually for each mutation. This averages out to an unimpressive increase in overall performance for your army.

On the other hand, Dehaka is your strongest unit throughout the game. He is heavily reliant on using his autoattacks to weaken enemies in order to minimize the cooldown of his Devour ability, especially during the early game. A 30% increase to his attack speed results in a noticeable increase in his healing rate, especially when paired with Devour Healing, as well as providing an excellent benefit to his offensive power when weakening and Devouring high-HP psionic or massive units.

Using Dehaka

Dehaka’s abilities can and should be used in combination with each other to achieve maximum effect. Early in the game, use Leap for positioning and to lead into Devouring psionic units. This allows you to have reduced cooldown after you cause a psionic explosion in the middle of a group of enemies, weakening multiple units in order to set yourself up to chain cast Devours.

When Dehaka falls low on health, retreat and pull a small group of enemies away. Once they are far enough from other enemies or base defenses, use Intimidating Roar to slow them. This allows you to fight a more manageable group of enemies without them running back, or risking more enemies joining in, giving you time and space to heal to full with Devour.

When fighting attack waves, there are three distinctly different ways of dealing with them, depending on the particular units you are faced with. Firstly, if the enemy wave features psionic units, you can simply walk or Leap into the group and Devour one or two psionics units in order to completely decimate the wave. Being extremely efficient, this will always be your best option, but relies on there actually being any psionic units to Devour—always keep an eye out for them. Against ground compositions, begin by using Scorching Breath from range, then follow up with Intimidating Roar to reduce incoming damage. Using a second Scorching Breath and a Leap should be enough to take care of the bulk of the wave, allowing you to clean up using Devour and Dehaka’s autoattacks. Finally, against air armies without psionic units, use Intimidating Roar and Devour to kite them. It is best to also bring your army or use a calldown to help against these waves, as most air armies do not feature enough biological units to keep Dehaka sustained.

When assaulting enemy bases, it is important to know exactly where the preplaced enemy psionic units are. As most maps feature three different races, each with distinctive placements that can be exploited in different ways, this can be a bit of a tall order, but advanced players will find it very worthwhile to learn such details. Each psionic unit you can Devour and use to defeat nearby defenders will let you earn additional Essence early on, and help open up the map. If there are multiple psionic units clumped up near each other, pay very close attention to where Dehaka is positioned. Start near the enemies farthest away from the psionic units and Devour them one at a time as you move through the defenders, as multiple explosions will be needed to clear these sorts of bases efficiently.

Make sure calldowns are available for bigger base pushes, as the area damage and the distraction caused by spawned units will allow for Dehaka to survive the concentrated firepower of the base defenses. If the base contains Hybrid Dominators or Battlecruisers, Leaping in and using level 2 Intimidating Roar gives you ample time to follow up, whether by Devouring a choice psionic unit, summoning a Pack Leader, or bringing in your army.

Knowing attack wave timings on maps is also important to optimize gameplay with Dehaka. While he does have a Deep Tunnel ability, it has an inhibiting 60 second cooldown and will force you to walk all the way back to where you were before. As Dehaka is your most powerful unit, making sure that he is always attacking into the enemy and collecting Essence is important. Try to intercept enemy attack waves as they pass near an enemy base, or Deep Tunnel over to intercept it just as the wave passes by a future objective, so that you can destroy both the wave and lead into attacking the next enemy encampment soon after.

Psionic Units

Devouring psionic units is an incredibly important part of good Dehaka play. For this reason, it is worth being able to recognize psionic units at a glance. Listed below are all of the psionic units you will see in Co-op.

Synergies

Raynor

Dehaka’s hero unit acts as an effective tank for Raynor's army, while Raynor’s great clean-up DPS can quickly lay waste to the empty bases Dehaka leaves behind him. In addition, the two commanders’ calldowns can bring significant amounts of firepower to the map when used in tandem, and can be combined to clear entire late game bases very early into the game.

Kerrigan

The two hero units working together form an unstoppable battering ram, rolling over enemy defenses and greatly accelerating Dehaka’s Essence collection. Additionally, Dehaka can help cover for Kerrigan’s weak anti-air with his Primal Mutalisks.

Artanis

Guardian Shell with mastery can restore an impressive amount of Dehaka’s health in the late game should he make a mistake, while allowing for more aggression during the early game. Dehaka’s Mutalisks become particularly durable when supported by Artanis’s Guardian Shell on top of their own ability to revive. Dehaka’s unit clearing potential negates Artanis’ vulnerability to attrition, allowing him to get far greater value from his units.

Swann

As with many other commanders, Dehaka appreciates the extra gas income from Swann’s Vespene Harvesters, since he is usually gas starved. Dehaka can also help to clear early attack waves on his own,allowing Swann to focus on getting his economy and army up and running. Swann’s sustained artillery is also useful to Dehaka when he is poking at a fortified enemy base with his hero unit.

Zagara

Dehaka is a strong late-game commander, and can pick up the slack when Zagara starts to run out of steam. Additionally, Dehaka benefits greatly from Zagara’s early aggression, providing more Essence for his hero to level up quickly. Zerglings have exceptional DPS, and benefit greatly from Dehaka leaving defenseless structures in his wake for them to chew on.

Vorazun

Dehaka’s hero unit and calldowns dominate the early-game, ensuring that Vorazun is able to tech up and amass units at her leisure. Vorazun’s Emergency Recall and Strike from the Shadow’s passives can help to preserve and enhance Dehaka’s Impalers.

Karax

Karax is able to help Dehaka level up faster during the early game by taking out dangerous units such as Siege Tanks and Carriers that would otherwise threaten him. Dehaka also appreciates Chrono Wave on Murvar’s Den in order to research critical upgrades for his air units faster.

Abathur

A cooperative Dehaka player can use their hero unit to kite enemy units into Toxic Nests early in the game, benefitting both Abathur and Dehaka greatly with Biomass and Essence. However, this can easily backfire if there is a lack of coordination between them, as Dehaka can easily deprive Abathur of the extra Biomass gained from units that would otherwise walk into Abathur’s Toxic Nests.

Maximizing Synergy with Toxic Nests

Dehaka’s strong early game unit allows him to easily power up both commanders. Dehaka should push out as soon as his hero unit spawns, luring pre-placed enemy units to follow him. While the enemy units are busy following Dehaka around in circles, Abathur can place Toxic Nests directly underneath them. The enemy units will ignore the Nests and continue to follow Dehaka. When the Toxic Nests finish deploying, they will instantly kill the units, giving Abathur his much-needed Biomass and granting Dehaka Essence. Here is a video demonstration of this strategy.

Alarak

Dehaka’s excellent mobility helps to make up for Alarak’s lack thereof. Alarak can use Structure Overcharge on Primal Wurms, which results in significant amounts of firepower, and can be Deep Tunneled to anywhere on the map at a moment’s notice. This only works on regular Primal Wurms, not Greater Primal Wurms, as Structure Overcharge cannot be cast on targets with timed life.

Nova

During the early game, Nova’s Defensive Drone can be very valuable for keeping Dehaka’s hero unit alive, allowing him to be far more aggressive than usual. This requires some understanding from the Nova player on when Dehaka actually needs the extra survivability to maintain his health. Conversely, Dehaka acts as an effective tank for Nova’s army, allowing them to engage much more freely. The two commanders also benefit from each other’s calldowns, with Tactical Airlift providing mobility to Dehaka’s slow ground army, while Greater Primal Wurms can provide vision for Airlifts and Griffin Airstrikes.

Stukov

Dehaka’s Primal Wurms can be targeted by Stukov’s Infest Structure to great effect, and even Deep Tunneled across the map during the duration of Infest Structure. This doesn’t work on Greater Primal Worms, though. Additionally, Stukov’s calldowns can cover for Dehaka’s hero unit while he jumps around enemy bases, wiping out defenses with his massive AoE damage. Dehaka and Stukov can combine their calldowns to concentrate high amounts of power into a small area, allowing for interesting sequence-breaking opportunities.

Fenix

Fenix’s Dragoon Suit can shore up Dehaka’s early game anti-air weakness, while the Praetor Suit serves as a very effective distraction to protect Dehaka when pushing into fortified bases, allowing Dehaka ample time to set up massive psionic explosions. Fenix’s fast ramp-up time can also provide a solution for Dehaka’s poor cleanup during the early game. In the mid game, Fenix can use the Cybros Arbiter’s Recall to provide mobility to Dehaka’s ground army, and to move Murvar and Dakrun across the map.

Han & Horner

Han can place Mag Mines outside of enemy encampments, and Dehaka can pull enemy units into them, providing extra damage and accelerating his Essence collection. Reapers have exceptional damage against structures, and benefit greatly from having Dehaka around to tank for them and clear out dangerous enemy units. Primal Wurms can also be Deep Tunneled to clusters of Mag Mines on-demand, holding enemy units in place as they trigger. Greater Primal Wurms can be summoned through the fog of war to give Han & Horner vision for their calldowns.

Map-Specific Tips

Chain of Ascension

Try to save Glevig for the Hybrids and their escorts, since they are grouped tightly when they spawn. It is possible to use part of Glevig’s duration to clear an enemy base blocking Ji’nara’s progress, allowing Jin’ara to be pushed into a Hybrid spawn checkpoint, then Deep Tunneling him over to clear the Hybrids at their spawn location.

The Creeper Host’s Aerial Burst Sacs upgrade is very important on this map, as it allows Murvar’ Creepers to destroy the many capital ships present in enemy bases along the main path, which is where Murvar will be most effective.

Due to how far out of the way each attack wave spawns, Dakrun can be helpful for killing them slowly by himself, using reflected damage against any air units. His usefulness against anything else on this map is limited.

It can be effective to mass Primal Hosts to assist in sieging the bases along the main path and for escorting Ji’nara, while Dehaka and the occasional calldown clears out each Hybrid spawn. At the end of the path, the Primal Hosts can be morphed into Creeper Hosts in order to deal massive burst damage to the final Hybrid spawn.

It is very possible to finish clearing the units guarding the first enemy base and both expansions before you are ready for the first Hybrid spawn. In this situation, you can farm more Essence by walking around the first base to fish out some of the enemies from the second base along the path. Be careful not to push Ji’nara too far, too soon.

Dead of Night

Send Dehaka up the ramp towards the southwestern enemy camps for early Essence, as this is where you will be able to level up most effectively.

The Infested and the their structures are tagged as light, so Igniters are optimal both to provide an early defense and for clearing out Infested structures. Unfortunately, they become dead weight when faced with Aberrations, which start showing up in force during the Night. Switch to Guardian production slightly in advance of Night 2 as your base defense, and hide your Igniters in a safe area.

If your ally can contribute to defense during Night 1, try sending Dehaka over to the ramp in the northwestern area. Many Aberrations pass through here, allow skilled players to farm them for Essence. Aberrations are massive, and the damage reflect buff from Devouring massive units will help to stem the tide of Infested in that area.

The first cast of Glevig should be saved for Day 2. The ideal place to use him is in the southwestern area, where there are many neat lines of structures for him to clear, along with some medium-strength clumps of enemies. Be sure to position him precisely in order to hit the maximum number of structures with each cast of Incendiary Acid.

Murvar can be used to clear the enemy base in the southeast, as well as surrounding structures. Be sure to give her multiple long-ranged attack move commands while you continue to micro Dehaka elsewhere, as she will run out of targets if left completely unattended.

Dakrun can be used to clear everything in the northeastern alcove if used alone. Skip over that area when you are clearing with Dehaka, and instead move onwards to clear some of the enemies on the eastern heights before Night 2 falls. If the enemy is Protoss or Zerg, plant a Greater Primal Wurm off to the side to reveal the cloaked units there. Do your best to keep it alive until the cloaked units have been dealt with.

Hunterlings can chain-stun Dehaka. This can be avoided by paying close attention when they are present, and moving Dehaka a small distance away every time they jump. This is extremely taxing, and demands great multitasking skills to maintain macro while doing this. It can be easier to just bring a few Guardians to target-fire Hunterlings that catch Dehaka in a stunlock.

If Chokers spawn during Night 1, prepare to rely on your ally’s help. Dehaka has no great way to deal with them at this stage, as his units are expensive and will simply be killed by Infested or more Chokers while trying to free Dehaka.

Dehaka can easily defend the northeastern entrance to your base by himself during Night 2. If you have been diligent with gathering Essence, the “massive” tag he gains at high levels will prevent Chokers from targeting him. Keep him away from allied units, as Chokers will still stun him if he is near non-massive units when they are targeted.

At the start of Day 3, move your Guardians out to the west and begin clearing in a clockwise direction. Keep clearing counter-clockwise with your Igniters. Both forces should meet up in the northern area. Summon Glevig as far away from your other units as possible in order to cover more ground.

Endeavor to end the map before the start of Night 3. If you don’t make it before Night 3, you may want to keep a few Guardians in their own group for sniping Nydus Worms. If the Stank appears, immediately Devour it with Dehaka and play safe while you wait for the Devour cooldown.

Lock & Load

The central Celestial Lock has the weakest defenses, which can net you some early Essence. The southern and western Celestial Locks are relatively heavily defended. Do not dive too deep into these bases with Dehaka alone during this stage of the game. Instead, attack the mini-bases to the northeast from the central Lock.

Exceptionally skilled players can plot out a route that provides enough Essence to allow you to deal with the capital ships at the southern Celestial Lock, followed by the cloaked units at the western Celestial Lock, then by an assault on the northern or eastern Locks by using Glevig as soon as he spawns. Consult the Replay Pack for an example of this.

When you step on the Celestial Locks, the surrounding defending units will automatically converge on the Lock to stop you. This tends to group them up very tightly, which is a useful way to line them up for the massive area damage available to Dehaka and his calldowns.

It is possible to use Glevig to clear most of the defenses at the western and northern Celestial Locks, followed by clearing the enemy camp in the northeast. A number of good pulls by Dehaka will be needed to make this possible, as enemies are spread out over a fairly wide area.

It’s not recommended to use Murvar on the western or southern Celestial Locks, as she does not have much mobility, and therefore it takes precious time to relocate her to an area with additional enemy resistance after clearing the paltry defenses at these locations. Instead, save her for the heavier defenses at the northern or eastern Celestial Locks.

Primal Wurms can defend the Celestial Locks from the trickling units that try to capture them. Deep Tunnel allows them to be moved into position without having to move Drones across the map.

Malwarfare

Primal Mutalisks are ideal for all roles on this map, but take longer to ramp up. If your ally is capable of contributing towards pushing or defending, Impalers can be used as an alternative to deal overwhelming damage to Suppression Towers, or Primal Hosts can be used to deal slightly less damage to Suppression Towers but push particularly well. Neither Impalers nor Primal Hosts are good at defense.

Only tier 1 units will spawn to attack the first bonus objective. Dakrun is perfect for clearing these, and can do so with no assistance.

Attack waves can spawn from inconvenient locations. It is recommended to cover one side of spawns with Dehaka and the other half with Primal Mutalisks, if forced to defend alone. If your ally is able to contribute, try to defend with either Dehaka or your army, while pushing with the other half to clear the path ahead of time.

Murvar is very effective against the first Suppression Tower, but may not be needed if your ally is able to contribute significant DPS.

Murvar may not be needed against the early defenses on this map, as they are all fairly easy to clear with Dehaka only. Consider sending your Mutalisks to the large enemy base guarding the third Security Terminal in order to provide vision for your second cast of Murvar. Clearing this base ahead of time can free up a lot of pressure later on, and provide more overall value to your calldowns. If you wish to do this, ensure that the Aerial Burst Sacs upgrade is researched.

A good source of Essence is the path between the second and third Security Terminals. All races have ample numbers of psionic units stationed here. Clear all the units around the first Security Terminal and bonus objective before coming here, to maximize the damage of psionic explosions.

The second bonus objective is attacked by waves of medium-tier units. Glevig’s area damage is perfect for spawn camping these.

Miner Evacuation

Dehaka and the Primal Pack Leaders are able to defend every single Evacuation Ship by themselves. This frees up any units produced to hunt down bonus objectives or defend the base. Consult the Replay Pack for an example of how to do this.

It’s highly advised to learn how to efficiently bring Aberrations to low HP for quick Devours. This allows Dehaka to maintain the armor and damage reflect buffs from Devouring massive units, providing significant damage and protection against the hordes of Infested that attack him.

Primal Guardians are effective on this map, both for supplementing Evacuation Ship defense and taking down bonus objectives.

Early Essence can be gained from the Aberrations at the Evacuation Ship to the east of the central expansion area. If this area is inactive, reach level 2 from the units around the Infested Bunkers in the expansion area, then go to the northern area with Infested Siege Tanks. Ignore the Bunkers themselves, as the time taken to destroy them is not worth the tiny Essence payoff.

Mist Opportunites

Mutalisks are highly recommended on this map, as Dehaka is not mobile enough to account for all possible enemy spawns.

The first Glevig spawn can be used to clear the defenses around the fourth set of Harvesting Bots, with the aid of Dehaka to pull enemies into position. Use Deep Tunnel to reach both sets of defenses.

Murvar can completely clear the first bonus area of defenses, as well as almost destroying the Terrazine Extraction Device on her own. Send a few Mutalisks her way while defending the Harvesting Bots with Dehaka to secure it. You can also use a single Primal Wurm to slowly finish it off.

The enemy camps in the middle of the map can be challenging to assault with Dehaka early on. It can be worth Devour-sniping them and waiting for the first two sets of Harvesting Bot to spawn, then coming back later when you have more Essence.

The second Terrazine Extraction Device is nestled in an alcove, with enemies packed fairly tightly. These are great conditions for Glevig, and using him to secure it is highly recommended. Be sure to Deep Tunnel him away after the defenses are cleared, as he is better spent on clearing another section of the map than dealing sustained damage to the objective itself.

At 10:00, an attack wave will spawn from the northern enemy base. Save Dakrun for it, making sure not to send any other units near.

At 15:30, a large attack wave will spawn. Save Dakrun for this wave and use him to assist Dehaka against it, as it will include many Hybrid. As this wave spawns close to the enemy base, this can be a good opportunity for aggressive players to clear it.

Oblivion Express

Impalers make short work of the Trains. As they require no upgrades to be effective, it’s possible to field a significant force of these, along with enough Primal Mutalisks to handle anti-air duties. If playing aggressively, Primal Hosts or Guardians can be used instead to push into enemy bases while still being capable of dealing decent damage to the Trains.

Early Essence can be tricky to farm on this map, and the ideal location varies greatly by enemy race, as explained below and as shown in this video.

Against Protoss, clearing the plateau to the east of your main will grant you enough Essence to reach level 2. The junction between the southwestern and southern bases hosts several packs of enemies and three High Templar. Group these enemies up luring them to follow you, then destroy them by Devouring the High Templar.

Against Terran, clearing the southeastern plateau will provide you with enough Essence to reach level 2. If you are exceptionally skilled, diving past the Bunkers in the northwest will grant access to many biological units and two Ghosts. Beware of diving too far, as you will aggro a Thor, which you cannot fight. If you are less confident, repeatedly dive in and out of range of the Bunkers to draw out enemy units.

Against Zerg, clearing the plateau to the east of your main will grant you enough essence to reach level 2. Exceptionally skilled players can then travel to the upper of the two bases in the eastern end of the map in order to gain access to several Infestors, Hydralisks, Mutalisks, and Roaches. Clear the southern cluster of units with the Infestor, then kite the nearby Ultralisk while chipping away at its health. Once it’s low, Devour it for the massive buff and dive back into the base in order to clear the newly hatched units with impunity. This is difficult, and less confident players should fish for Zerglings and other units in the northwest, instead.

Glevig can destroy the first Train by himself. Make sure to place him near bends in the track. This allows him to hit the maximum possible number of Train cars with his Incendiary Acid. Use his remaining duration to clear some of the nearby enemy bases for extra Essence.

Murvar should be used in the bottom Train staging area just before the Train spawns. Clearing the frontal defenses in the area will allow you to move your army into a good position to destroy the Train, then move onto clearing out some of the nearby enemy bases in the region.

Dakrun can be used to intercept some of the remote attack waves spawning from the southeast. Unfortunately, his remaining duration can’t really be used effectively. Just send him into a nearby base to generate some bonus Essence.

When spawncamping Train escort waves, bear in mind that air units will briefly appear in their spawn area, before being teleported offscreen and slowly flying back in. Try to catch them with a psionic explosion during this small window. Otherwise, save some psionic units to nuke them when they come back.

Part and Parcel

At the start of the game, clear the defenses at the western area before sending in a token force of Zerglings to destroy the Parcels and collect the Parts. Keep clearing the map with Dehaka during this time.

The ideal way of clearing this map is to attack move a force of Primal Mutalisks or Guardians through the southern half of the map, while Dehaka solo clears the northern section. If using Guardians, be prepared to Deep Tunnel Primal Wurms to their defense in order to deal with the few air units scattered around the southern bases.

Murvar’s Oppressive Stench does not disable the Hybrid Experiment’s abilities.

Murvar alone is enough to destroy the bonus Trains if you can’t spare the units to do so. This is highly recommended, as enemy defenses on this map are quite scattered and are generally a waste of Murvar’s damage potential.

Due to the huge size of the map and the general weakness of enemy defenses, Glevig’s best use is simply intercepting attack waves. Save a Greater Primal Wurm when waves are due, using it to spot for Glevig through the fog of war.

Enemy air units can attack the uppermost expansion’s mineral line if they make it that far into the map. Due to this, it is important to intercept northern attack waves before they get there.

Rifts to Korhal

The enemy base guarding the second set of Void Shards is extremely difficult to assault with only Dehaka. It may be best to snipe off enemies with Devour until Glevig spawns, at which point you’ll have more than enough firepower to clear out the middle base and then Deep Tunnel over to the ramp leading to the third set of Void Shards to clear out some of that too.

If you choose to go for mass Mutalisks, it will be possible to snipe the Void Shards and the Pirate Ships without fighting through all the enemy defenses. However, this is rarely worth it due to the ease with which Dehaka and his calldowns deal with enemy units.

If you have spare minerals, you can use Primal Wurms to destroy the Void Shards after clearing out the surrounding defences. Deep Tunnel them to where they will be able to hit two Void Shards at once for maximum coverage.

Dakrun can solo both of the Pirate Ships. Simply summon him underneath one and command him to hold position. The Pirate Ships will destroy themselves via reflected damage due to their rapid attacks.

Leaving the back-middle Void Shard in the final base for last means you can Devour one of the giant enemy heroic units at no penalty. Avoid doing this until the rest of the base is clear. The Protoss Mothership is the exception to this, as its psionic tag massively reduces the penalty of Devouring it.

Scythe of Amon

It’s possible to trivialize the defenses of this map by clearing the Void Slivers in a specific order, starting with the northwestern Sliver. This is because each Void Sliver comes with preplaced defenses, with the northwestern Sliver featuring the most difficult units. It’s easier to deal with these sooner rather than later, as they are far less dangerous without the support of high tier units spawned from Void Rifts, which will only appear as you destroy more Void Slivers. This strategy is only recommended if your ally is on board with it and you are able to consistently get Dehaka to Level 6 before Glevig arrives. It also presumes that you do not take your expansion. Consult the Replay Pack for further details.

If you are not using the reverse clearing strategy, it is advised to clear the expansion Void Sliver first. Clear out the defending units with Dehaka, then destroy the Sliver with Zerglings and your Primal Warden or your ally’s assistance. Send Dehaka to start clearing out defenses from the rest of the map, as he is wasted on the Void Sliver itself.

Avoid destroying Void Rifts before you are ready to make a final push against a Void Sliver. The respawning enemies make for a great source of Essence, and should be actively farmed while teching up and building up forces.

Many Ghosts spawn from Void Rifts at later Void Slivers. Pay attention to where these appear and avoid killing them immediately, saving them instead for well-placed casts of Devour.

Due do the intensity of the attack waves on this map, it may be wise to reserve calldowns for them and use your global mobility to intercept them close to the next Void Sliver you want to push into. Clear the wave with a calldown, then use any remaining duration to attack the nearby Void Sliver.

Any of your Pack Leader calldowns are able to clear each bonus objective area by themselves. Make sure to send them elsewhere after the job is done in order to avoid wasting their timers. If you are especially skilled, Dehaka alone can do the job, allowing you to save the Pack Leaders for clearing Void Sliver defenses.

Temple of the Past

Right after Dehaka spawns, use Deep Tunnel to travel beyond each lane’s Rocks without breaking them. The enemies around the Zenith Stones provide ample Essence before the first wave arrives. Save the guards at the southwestern Zenith Stone for last, so that you can intercept the attack wave after you clear it.

Dehaka can easily defend a lane by himself in most cases. Keep him separate from your army whenever enemies are spawning from both sides in order to handle both at once. Against air compositions without psionic units, support Dehaka with a couple of Primal Wurms.

Primal Mutalisks are ideal for this map, and will easily be able to deal with almost all enemy compositions once enough are amassed. Unfortunately, they take some time to ramp up, leaving you vulnerable during the early game if forced to defend both sides. Make good use of calldowns to see you through this period.

A handful of Tyrannozors can be added to your unit composition to great effect on this map. Plant them directly on top of enemy spawn points in the late game and manually cast their Spike Bursts in unison. This will instantly wipe out most enemy units as they spawn in, leaving the remainder to get cleaned up by your Mutalisks.

Glevig’s Incendiary Acid can easily destroy the enemy transports that invade from the northeastern lane. If facing Protoss, remember that Warp Prisms are psionic—Devouring one can take out rest of the wave with it. For maximum destruction, Deep Tunnel Dehaka to the Warp Prisms’ spawn point across the chasm, just after they’ve finished loading the enemy units.

Glevig can deal with the double waves that come from two lanes at once by using Deep Tunnel. Clear one wave close to its spawn area, then reposition with Deep Tunnel to deal with the second wave.

The Vermillion Problem

Against Terran or Zerg, you can begin assaulting the center-left island with Dehaka while the first Lava Surge is occurring—If facing Protoss, go straight to the expansion. Once the Lava Surge is over, you can move to the expansion and begin clearing out the enemy units. Move your Primal Warden and a Drone to the expansion - the Drone should build a Primal Hive while the Primal Warden can root and produce extra Zerglings to clear out the structures. After taking out the various threatening air units with Dehaka, he should be sent to another island before the next Lava Surge while your Zerglings clean up.

Your Primal Wardens should be positioned on the expansion island to allow you to more efficiently rally your army.

Your first cast of Glevig can catch the second attack wave, which usually arrives via transports. You can use Glevig to help Dehaka assault one of the islands near your base and Deep Tunnel as the transports close in on your base.

Mutalisks are highly recommended, since they can fly over the lava, but you should listen to Donny and watch out for those lava spouts. You know about the lava spouts, right?

Murvar is highly recommended for the center-right island, which is guarded by units that can be a threat to both Dehaka and his army.

Attack waves can come from all directions. Glevig’s Deep Tunnel is very useful against these, as he can use Incendiary Acid to destroy them quickly before returning to attack elsewhere. It is also useful to have Dehaka moving separately from the main army, in order to have maximum flexibility in intercepting attacks as well as for clearing out the enemies guarding the Xenon Crystals.

Use your excess minerals to build Primal Wurms, which you should Deep Tunnel a few of onto the islands you have cleared—Dehaka can make use of the vision for his own Deep Tunnel.

You have a few options when dealing with Molten Sal. You can send a squad of Mutalisks over at any time, or you can gain vision of the area early on and then use a Greater Primal Wurm, followed by Deep Tunneling Primal Wurms or a Pack Leader calldown during the Lava Surge. You can also plan your route through the map so that you arrive at the center-south island during the Lava Surge.

Void Launch

Early Essence can be hard to earn on this map. The two camps to either side of the middle bonus objective are ideal starting points, as other camps are protected by tough air units or static defenses. Preplaced Zerg enemies are an exception to this, as they provide many psionic enemies all over the map that can be used to destroy their fragile air support.

Primal Mutalisks are ideal for this map, and perform admirably in hunting down the airborne objectives and can live through assaults on enemy base defenses.

Enemy spawn points are very accessible on this map, and their spawning locations are fixed. It can be beneficial to learn these patterns so you can destroy these enemies with Glevig as they arrive. If not, you can still do so when they pass through the tight choke points at the ramps leading down from the cliffs.

Be sure to research Aerial Burst Sacs, as Murvar is not very helpful against the Shuttles, their escorts and, the airborne base defenses without it.

As always, pushing into the enemy bases as soon as possible is highly beneficial, as this gives you access to each Shuttle Launch Bay, enabling you to attack them as they spawn. Dehaka’s calldowns are perfect for attacking into the large enemy bases guarding the Launch Bays, and should be used to clear attack waves at their spawn point, and then be used to push into the base directly afterwards.

Due to Dehaka’s Primal Hives costing significant amounts of supply, it may be best forgo a third base on this map unless you can secure one very early on.

Likewise, the Primal Wurm’s supply cost prevents Dehaka from using the usual static defense spawncamp strategies that other commanders use on this map. Instead, just camp the Shuttle Launch Bays with Mutalisks and calldowns.

Void Thrashing

Early Essence is easily accessible on this map, though maximizing it takes some finesse. Here is a video showing an efficient approach for each race. In general, the fastest order to quickly amass Essence is middle Void Thrasher defenses > right enemy camp > left enemy camp. Aim to clear all of this out by about 4 minutes into the game.

Enemy defenses on this map are quite dense and varied, and offer many tactical options for the discerning Dehaka player. Think carefully about calldown and ability usage, and remember that the expected route of northwestern base > southeastern base > northeastern base is not necessarily the best order for tackling the enemy bases and Void Thrashers. Consult the Replay Pack for ideas.

Impalers are excellent at taking down Void Thrashers. Be mindful of their range, as their attack range is longer than their vision range. Make sure one Impaler is just within sight of the target Void Thrasher, as burrowing them any closer will attract the Thrasher’s AoE attack.

As the northwestern base’s defenses are rather weak, consider using Glevig to clear out the front half of the northeastern base instead, as this is a better use of Glevig’s time and will save you a lot of trouble later into the game. Exceptional players can deal significant damage to the enemy defenses with only a portion of Glevig’s duration, before Deep Tunneling him away to clear out part of the southeastern base as well.

The southeastern base’s capital ships and Hybrids can be lured into a neat clump by Dehaka to set them up for Glevig’s Incendiary Acid. This is rather difficult to pull off, but is very rewarding if done correctly.

Murvar is best used for clearing the back portion of the southeastern base. Summon her off-center so that she doesn’t suffer overwhelming damage from the capital ships and Hybrids stationed there. The exception to this advice is against Zerg, where Murvar should be placed right in the middle of the Hybrid Behemoths—they will all be disabled and killed, leaving Dehaka free to mop up the rest of the enemies by Devouring the many nearby Infestors and Vipers.

Against Terran and Protoss, it can be wise to save the northwestern base for last, as its defenses are trivial for Dehaka to clear by himself once he reaches high levels. Clearing the other bases first allows you to use your calldowns optimally to take down a more appropriate number of enemies as soon as each Pack Leader becomes available.

Greater Primal Wurms can be spawned in previously scouted locations. If you let the Archangel escape and fly to the left side, you can summon a Greater Primal Wurm there to provide vision for Dehaka or a calldown.

Replay Pack

These solo speedrun replays showcase the effective use of various Dehaka builds on different maps.

On April 10 2018 01:32 TheDougler wrote:One thing I can never help but wonder with Dehaka is whether it's ever worth it to use his uprooted buildings (hive and wardens) in combat. Any thoughts on that?

It's not! They are much too cumbersome, being both slow and having a massive collision size, and they don't do much damage in any case. Their only real use would be to absorb Yamato Cannons, but Dehaka can stop those with his hero unit, and don't generally have too many problem with that sort of thing in any case.

You can move your Primal Wardens around behind your army on some maps (like Malwarfare and Chain of Ascension) though, to provide faster unit resupply.

I am surprised you consider Dehaka's swarm hosts a niche composition. Flying banelings that can kill air and ground units from a distance. Rifts to korhal should definitely be played with swarm hosts because of the way they can abuse the close by air design of the map. Overall, a really good writeup. It's worth mentioning that warp prism counts as a psionic unit, so on some maps you can kill every single warp prism by standing in the middle of them and devouring one of them.

On April 10 2018 06:33 iLose4u wrote:I am surprised you consider Dehaka's swarm hosts a niche composition. Flying banelings that can kill air and ground units from a distance. Rifts to korhal should definitely be played with swarm hosts because of the way they can abuse the close by air design of the map. Overall, a really good writeup. It's worth mentioning that warp prism counts as a psionic unit, so on some maps you can kill every single warp prism by standing in the middle of them and devouring one of them.

Niche doesn't necessarily mean bad, just specialized—which Primal Hosts are. If you check out the replays, you will see that several speedruns use Primal Hosts, which in itself proves their effectiveness.

Warp Prisms are listed under the Psionic Units section, and mentioned on occasion under map tips (though not in every scenario where that would be applicable)

Overall a pretty good guide, as usual. I'm not a fan of your talent order though (assuming you're not going mass primal wurm). You can easily get away with getting the regeneration talent at levels 2, 3 and 7, saving max leap and consume for the last few levels. You'll do less AOE damage and technically have less sustain on Dehaka, but it's not necessary. He will not die if you're careful with how much you aggro at once and what you consume. The benefit of the talent swap is to help keep your early to mid game army alive, thus having an easier time hitting critical mass.

On April 10 2018 17:58 esReveR wrote:Overall a pretty good guide, as usual. I'm not a fan of your talent order though (assuming you're not going mass primal wurm). You can easily get away with getting the regeneration talent at levels 2, 3 and 7, saving max leap and consume for the last few levels. You'll do less AOE damage and technically have less sustain on Dehaka, but it's not necessary. He will not die if you're careful with how much you aggro at once and what you consume. The benefit of the talent swap is to help keep your early to mid game army alive, thus having an easier time hitting critical mass.

The regeneration is not gotten at early levels because of the effectiveness of dehaka vs your army. Optimal dehaka play will always aggro "too many enemies" because psionic explosions and other aoe spells are a thing. The heal does not sustain Dehaka, and your army generally does perfectly fine without any levels in heal. Optimally, your army isn't really fighting any units in the midgame, since dehaka and his calldowns should have cleared them, so there isn't much to sustain against. Additionally, if Dehaka is just sitting near his units just healing them up, you're losing mapwide effectiveness because Dehaka, your strongest unit, is being wasted.

On April 10 2018 17:58 esReveR wrote:Overall a pretty good guide, as usual. I'm not a fan of your talent order though (assuming you're not going mass primal wurm). You can easily get away with getting the regeneration talent at levels 2, 3 and 7, saving max leap and consume for the last few levels. You'll do less AOE damage and technically have less sustain on Dehaka, but it's not necessary. He will not die if you're careful with how much you aggro at once and what you consume. The benefit of the talent swap is to help keep your early to mid game army alive, thus having an easier time hitting critical mass.

The regeneration is not gotten at early levels because of the effectiveness of dehaka vs your army. Optimal dehaka play will always aggro "too many enemies" because psionic explosions and other aoe spells are a thing. The heal does not sustain Dehaka, and your army generally does perfectly fine without any levels in heal. Optimally, your army isn't really fighting any units in the midgame, since dehaka and his calldowns should have cleared them, so there isn't much to sustain against. Additionally, if Dehaka is just sitting near his units just healing them up, you're losing mapwide effectiveness because Dehaka, your strongest unit, is being wasted.

I completely agree. Optimal Dehaka plays (i.e. good micro and decision making) should almost never include a passive healing. Especially since his spells are cooldown dependent rather than mana dependent. I occasionally will go for healing on Dead of Night for better mutalisk sustain during night time (I am usually killing buildings during night time).

The biggest Dehaka weakness in my eyes is his lack of anti-air killing capability. Scorching breath takes care of ground but he generally has a really hard time with mass scourge or mass liberator waves.

There is no shame in defeat, so long as the spirit remains unconquored

On April 22 2018 18:48 SilverBullet wrote:The biggest Dehaka weakness in my eyes is his lack of anti-air killing capability. Scorching breath takes care of ground but he generally has a really hard time with mass scourge or mass liberator waves.

If you don't want to rely on your ally to take care of the air, you can mass primal wurms and deep tunnel them to the battefield when necessary. Dehaka tends to bank up a lot of minerals anyways, so you can spare some.

Against mass scourge, mass hydras on the ground could help deal with the rest of the air that follows. Dehaka and a few ultras can tank.

Bit surprised that you guys put Creeper Host + Primal Wurm as a niche composition.(altho you used zerglings here)Definetely feels much much stronger than Lurker + Wurm or the other niche variants.-Especially the cost efficiency is insane, clearing whole waves without taking any damage at all feels like cheating.